406 MR. SINGLETON'S MARLING. 



The slight, and almost contemptuous manner, in which marl is 

 mentioned by so well informed an agriculturist as Taylor, as late 

 as 1814, when his Arator was published (and which remained un- 

 altered in his 3d edition of 1817), proves that almost nothing was 

 then known of the value of this manure. All that seems to relate 

 to our abundant deposits of fossil shells, or to marl generally, is 

 contained in the two following passages : 



" Without new accessions of vegetable matter, successive heavy dress- 

 ings with lime, gypsum, and even marl, have been frequently found to 

 terminate in impoverishment. Hence it is inferred, that minerals operate 

 as an excitement only to the manure furnished by the atmosphere. From 

 this fact results the impossibility of renovating an exhausted soil, by re- 

 sorting to fossils, which will expel the poor remnant of life ; and indeed 

 it is hardly probable that divine wisdom has lodged in the bowels of the, 

 earth, the manure necessary for its surface." Arator, p. 52, 2d edition, Balti- 

 more. 



" Of lime and marl we have an abundance, but experience does not enti- 

 tle me to say anything of either." Id. p. 80. 



From John Singleton to the Hon. Win. TilgJiman. 



#####-K-*#-K 



" Your first question is, ' whether what I use be marl, or soil mixed with 

 shells ?' 



"Whether it be marl or not, I will not pretend to determine, as I have 

 seen no description of marl that answers exactly to it; but Mr. Tench 

 Tilghman informed me he had seen a description of marl used in Scotland, 

 exactly similar to what I use on the farm on which I reside, and which is 

 the improved land you mention. I have not seen the account myself. 

 However, this, and all mixtures of broken marine shells, of which there is 

 a great variety, are now denominated marl, here. What I consider the 

 best, and which I most use, is composed of small parts of marine shells, 

 chiefly scallop shell, about one-eighth of an inoh square, or somewhat 

 longer or smaller, with scarce any sand or soil with it: some of it seems to 

 be petrified, and is dug up in lumps, like stone, from four or five, to forty 

 or fifty pounds in weight, hard to break even with the eye of an axe, and 

 will remain for years, tumbled about with the plough, before it is entirely 

 broken to pieces, and mixed with the soil ; indeed you may observe it in 

 some parts of the bank, where the soil has been washed from it, appearing 

 like rock stone ; but if broken and pulverized a little, it effervesces very 

 much with acids. 



" I have applied it to all the soils on my farm, some of which is a cold 

 white clay, and wet ; others a light loam, and sandy. I find it useful to 

 each kind, and manure my land all over with it, without distinction, and to 

 advantage ; putting a smaller quantity upon the looser soils. I have applied 

 it as a top dressing on clover, and also where clover has not been sown, 

 with a view to improving the grass, and also to be satisfied whether it 

 would not be best for the ground, to let it lie spread on the surface, for a 

 year before the ground was put into cultivation. But it has not answered 

 my expectation. I could not perceive any advantage from that mode of 

 application. I now constantly apply it to the ground cultivated in corn ; 

 carting it out in the winter and spring, and putting on from twenty to forty 

 cart-loads per acre, according to the ground, and the previous quantity 



